Cable needs Raiders to reverse AFC West woes

Many of you have had enough of the constant update (usually on the back end) of 30-86.

That represents, of course, the Raiders won-loss record over the past seven-plus seasons since the 48-21 loss to Tampa Bay in Super Bowl XXXVII.

Believe it or not, there are even worse subsets of won-loss records than 30-86 and its .259 winning percentage.

The Raiders are fond of reminding everyone in their weekly press release that they are the last AFC West team to go to the Super Bowl as well as the only division team to qualify for the playoffs in each of the last five decades.

What they leave out, understandably, is that against the teams they want to beat the most, they’re faring much worse than they are against the rest of the league.

Against division opponents over the last seven seasons, the Raiders are 8-34, a .190 winning percentage.

It gets worse.

Over the last seven years, the Raiders are 2-19 against AFC West teams at home, an almost-impossible-to-fathom-in-an-age-of-parity percentage of .095.

One of those wins was a 34-31 win over San Diego in overtime on Sept. 28, 2003, after which Oakland began a 13-game losing streak to the Chargers which the Raiders hope to end Sunday at the Coliseum.

The only other AFC West win at the Coliseum since then was a 34-20 win over Denver in 2007.

The Raiders have won more times in division games at Arrowhead Stadium (three) and as many times at Mile High Stadium (twice) as they’ve won in Oakland since 2003.

Included on the home front are some of the lowest points in franchise history.

The 27-0 Week 1 humiliation against Chargers in Art Shell’s second debut, for instance.

Or the 41-14 loss to the Broncos in Oakland to open the 2008 season.

Each Tuesday during my on-line chats, the question of Tom Cable’s job security comes up (as well as in e-mails almost daily almost immediately.

My answer has been the same. Davis has only fired two coaches during the season _ Mike Shanahan in 1989 and Lane Kiffin in 2008. Both were regarded as insubordinate by Davis. Shanahan tried to fire Shell and other assistants without Davis’ consent. He hired them back and eventually fired Shanahan. The Kiffin dismissal is fresh enough that it needs no rehash.

Both times it happened following a loss against a division opponent in a home game. Shanahan fell 24-20 to the Seattle Seahawks (they moved to the NFC West in 2002) and was dumped at 1-3. Kiffin lost 28-18 to the San Diego Chargers and walked the plank at 1-3.

Cable hasn’t been insubordinate, but a non-competitive loss to a San Diego team that extends its win streak against the Raiders to 14 games ought to make him awfully uncomfortable at 1-4.

Winners are winners. How can Tom Cable impart a “winning” attitude to his team when he himself comes from a history of losing?

I see a problem of not knowing what it’s like to win.
Lottery winners almost always regress to where they were before they won, because that’s what they know; that’s “who they are”. All Cable knows is losing. Cable couldn’t even win with Idaho, and he certainly hasn’t learned much about winning with Oakland.